The Things Network is launching bespoke hardware to dramatically reduce the costs of executing their mission

The Things Network’s mission is to create a free global data network. This product will allow their community to build the network at 20% of the costs compared to currently available hardware.

A few months ago, with only a handful of devices, The Things Network managed to cover the whole city of Amsterdam with a new type of wireless network using a technology called LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide-area network).

When they told everyone, the response from around the world was astonishing. Within a few days, they had groups and companies from cities like Manchester, Sao Paulo, London, Boston, Buenos Aires, and many more showing not just interest in the project, but actively starting LoRaWAN projects.

This was proof, that an open, global Internet of Things network could be possible with minimal costs and an unprecedented speed for deployment.

To accelerate this even further and to support their global teams, they decided to design a device that can help build networks for 20% of the cost, compared to other products available on the market. And they also added further tools to help adoption of this infrastructure, to manifest the Internet of Things for everyone.

“The mission of our foundation is to support communities around the world to build open and free Internet of Things datanetworks. Now we reduced the costs of building such a network by 80%„Wienke Giezeman, Initiator The Things Network

They decided to use Kickstarter to make this device easily available to our community members and everyone else who wants to support our vision and help make their city a smart city.

They created a small tool for people to lookup the impact they will make by installing this device in their homes. You can find the tool here.

They included two prototyping units for business and developers to start creating use cases right away. See more about the products on our Kickstarter page here.